PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: 'A government takeover of health care'

[PoliticalChic]

"PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times ..."
PolitiFact | Sorting out the truth in politics


Just sayin'...

Wow, a town in Florida has the same name as a city in Russia. Amazing point!

You may be dense, or simply don't know that the paper is left leaning, and this info might be useful in digesting any politifact data...

Further, Politifact.com is often mistaken for FactCheck.org, which is considered more acceptable as a source.

Does that clarify it for you?

BTW, there is no FactCheck in Russia....

just sayin'...

 

[Greenbeard]

You may be dense, or simply don't know that the paper is left leaning, and this info might be useful in digesting any politifact data...

Share a Politifact article with us whose conclusions are incorrect due to some bias. If you've got a point to make, go ahead and make it.

 

[PoliticalChic]

You may be dense, or simply don't know that the paper is left leaning, and this info might be useful in digesting any politifact data...

Share a Politifact article with us whose conclusions are incorrect due to some bias. If you've got a point to make, go ahead and make it.

I already made it...have someone read it to both of you...

Or does the "Share a Politifact article with us ..." refer to you having a tape worm?

 

[Greenbeard]

I already made it...have someone read it to both of you...

"They're biased but I can't produce a single example of it" is indeed a powerful point. Thank you.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I already made it...have someone read it to both of you...

"They're biased but I can't produce a single example of it" is indeed a powerful point. Thank you.

You should learn to read more carefully, and you might do that while you were brushing up on your civility...

My statement was " the paper is left leaning, and this info might be useful in digesting any politifact data..."

Now, you might apologize for the sarcasm in your original post, or you might mount a defense of why the point of view of a newspaper is in no way "useful in digesting any ... data..." and why Stormfront is as good a source as any as to the contributions of Jewish folks....


It would appear that the latter course is less efficacious than the former.

 

[kiwiman127]

Obamacare was an attempt to help people who couldn't afford healthcare, it was a noble idea. Too bad that politicians decided the basics including the the killer,,,mandating people and companies.
The bottom-line is that we pay way too much for healthcare.. The cost of healthcare continues to creep up as a percentage of the GDP and the costs are seriously eating away at working American's expendable income and the profits of small and large businesses. I recently read an article how healthcare costs are eating away the US Department of Defense's budget. During the last decade the cost of healthcare insurance went up 131% according the the Kaiser Foundation and household incomes only went up 38%.
The GOP keeps on pushing the concept that tort reform is one of the main answers, yet according to various studies, malpractice only accounts for 2% of healthcare costs and 2% is the highest estimate.
Being able to buy healthcare insurance across state lines would create competition. Healthier people would be able to buy cheaper insurance where ever they dcould find the best price. But those who are less healthy would probably find their premiums go up accrdong to the CBO. (Let Health Insurance Cross State Lines, Some Say - NYTimes.com).
What really needs to be done is having non-politcal, non-partisan industry experts devise a healthcare system that is effective and doesn't rape America at the same time.
We can't afford to let an ideology or the for-profit healthcare industry dictate our healthcare requirements and options.
Some say having healthcare isn't a right, others say it is a right. But the fact of the matter having healthcare is a basic necessity. A basic necessity shouldn't be a political football or a means to hold a nation hostage at the whim of profit margins.

 

[Oddball]

What's with the obsession with interstate purchasing? Is it the fallacy that it will make hospitals charge lower reimbursements (instead of, potentially, driving them up)?

It's the silly little American ideas of breaking up defacto in-state quasi-monopolies, getting rid of silly must-cover mandates, and free competition in the marketplace...You know, that "interstate commerce" thingy.

 

[Greenbeard]

What's with the obsession with interstate purchasing? Is it the fallacy that it will make hospitals charge lower reimbursements (instead of, potentially, driving them up)?

It's the silly little American ideas of breaking up defacto in-state quasi-monopolies, getting rid of silly must-cover mandates, and free competition in the marketplace...You know, that "interstate commerce" thingy.

An increasingly competitive insurance market can actually raise the price of care because it confers price-setting power to providers. You think care gets cheaper for someone in a high cost area when his insurer loses market power relative to its competitors? Hospitals magically offer higher discounts on their chargemaster when insurers' bargaining power is weakened? Okay.

As for coverage mandates, those exist largely at the state level (at least until 2014). And since state government is what Tenth Amendment-ers seem to think is the purest level of government, what's the problem? Why do you need federal intervention to undo what states have done? Surely if you're dissatisfied with your state's health policies the correct place to lobby for their change is your statehouse. Are you pushing for change in your state, or even your neighboring states, or are you relying on Congress to do it for you?

 

[Oddball]

I'm expecting that congress can read the document that they've sworn an oath to preserve and protect and properly invoke and enforce the interstate commerce clause, for a change.

 

[Greenbeard]

I'm expecting that congress can read the document that they've sworn an oath to preserve and protect and properly invoke and enforce the commerce clause, for a change.

That doesn't explain why Congress is involved in the discussion at all if your policy preferences are 1) opening your state to insurance policies sold by insurers based in other states (something your state legislature is perfectly capable of changing) and 2) overturning whatever mandates exist in your state's laws.

Why do you prefer Congressional action to state action in accomplishing these objectives?

 

[Oddball]

Because this is one of the very few areas where it's actually within one of congress' enumerated powers to act, to promote that old "general welfare" thing you socialists seem to constantly invoke.

The United States Congress shall have power...to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes".

That's "regulate" as in to make regular....As in to see to it that the person in Nevada can purchase the same insurance product that's available to someone in Ohio.

For someone who supposedly has all the answers for virtually everything, I'm rather surprised such things have to be spelled out for you.

 

[Greenbeard]

Because this is one of the very few areas where it's actually within one of congress' enumerated powers to act, to promote that old "general welfare" thing you socialists seem to constantly invoke. [...]

For someone who supposedly has all the answers, I'm rather surprised such things have top be spelled out for you.

I figured your rationale was the same as that used by liberals: most of the states aren't doing what we want so we're not shy about using federal power to step in and do it for them.

I just wanted to hear you say it. And you even invoked the general welfare clause. Wow.

 

[Oddball]

Wrong again.

Most states have created defacto in-state monopolies for medical insurance.

My approach justly uses an enumerated federal power to break up that abuse of power...Your approach piles federal abuse on top of state abuses, as an alleged remedy.

Nice try.

 

[Greenbeard]

I'm not disputing that the policy is different. I'm pointing out that the underlying philosophy is the same. You wish to use federal power to strip states of the ability to regulate their insurance markets as they see fit because you think the outcomes have been bad. Liberals wish to use federal power to strip states of the ability to regulate their insurance markets as they see fit because they think the outcomes have been bad.

If you think I'm arguing that the feds can't do that, you're mistaken. You don't need to keep justifying it to me. You might need to justify it to other "small government, states' rights" conservatives, though.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Because this is one of the very few areas where it's actually within one of congress' enumerated powers to act, to promote that old "general welfare" thing you socialists seem to constantly invoke.

The United States Congress shall have power...to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes".

That's "regulate" as in to make regular....As in to see to it that the person in Nevada can purchase the same insurance product that's available to someone in Ohio.

For someone who supposedly has all the answers for virtually everything, I'm rather surprised such things have to be spelled out for you.

To understand what the word regulate means when the constutition was written you would have to find 17th century Dictionary. Oddball you're pretty close to the meaning.

 

[Oddball]

I'm not disputing that the policy is different. I'm pointing out that the underlying philosophy is the same. You wish to use federal power to strip states of the ability to regulate their insurance markets as they see fit because you think the outcomes have been bad. Liberals wish to use federal power to strip states of the ability to regulate their insurance markets as they see fit because they think the outcomes have been bad.

If you think I'm arguing that the feds can't do that, you're mistaken. You don't need to keep justifying it to me. You might need to justify it to other "small government, states' rights" conservatives, though.

The underlying philosophies couldn't be more diametrically opposed.

On the classical liberal side, the use of federal power to intervene, when the state is acting against the individual as the aggressor in the marketplace, is the exact scenario the commerce clause was envisioned and intended to come into play. The outcome is less overall intervention in the marketplace, with just use of federal authority, and more power in the hands of individuals to act.

The route of the statist is to disingenuously use the negative impacts of current state and federal meddling in the marketplace as evidence that even more intervention, to the point of the creation of an immense federal monopoly, is justified-cum-imperative. The outcome is more and more power and access to resources centralized in fewer and fewer hands.

Again, nice try.

 

[Revere]

I'm not disputing that the policy is different. I'm pointing out that the underlying philosophy is the same. You wish to use federal power to strip states of the ability to regulate their insurance markets as they see fit because you think the outcomes have been bad. Liberals wish to use federal power to strip states of the ability to regulate their insurance markets as they see fit because they think the outcomes have been bad.

If you think I'm arguing that the feds can't do that, you're mistaken. You don't need to keep justifying it to me. You might need to justify it to other "small government, states' rights" conservatives, though.

You want to replace the states' garbage with your own garbage at the Federal level, and much, much more of it.

You left out that part.

 

[Greenbeard]

The underlying philosophies couldn't be more diametrically opposed.

On the classical liberal side, the use of federal power to intervene, when the state is acting against the individual as the aggressor in the marketplace, is the exact scenario the commerce clause was envisioned and intended to come into play. The outcome is less overall intervention in the marketplace, with just use of federal authority, and more power in the hands of individuals to act.

The route of the statist is to disingenuously use the negative impacts of current state and federal meddling in the marketplace as evidence that even more intervention, to the point of the creation of an immense federal monopoly, is justified-cum-imperative. The outcome is more and more power and access to resources centralized in fewer and fewer hands.

Again, nice try.

Hey, I'm with you. Sometimes federal action is necessary when state policies are resulting in bad outcomes.

But don't let the Tenth Amendment crowd hear you!

 

[Greenbeard]

You want to replace the states' garbage with your own garbage at the Federal level, and much, much more of it.

You left out that part.

Weren't you the one who argued HIPAA is okay because it works? Yes, I believe you are.

 

[Revere]

HIPAA didn't subordinate any state laws which did materially the same things.